


Somewhere Between It All I Fell in Love

by flawsinthevoodoo



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:52:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawsinthevoodoo/pseuds/flawsinthevoodoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabe has many platonic soulbonds, but he's never wanted anything more until Matt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere Between It All I Fell in Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melk24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melk24/gifts).



> Written for the June Flash Fic Exchange!I love writing Avs fic and Soulmate AU's just make everything better. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it!

Gabe has more than a few platonic soulbonds, he seems to be prone to them.His skin is covered with the scattered marks, ranging from Jeff Skinner’s ridiculous smiley face on his left ankle to the giant lion on his back from his twin. Most of them are small and maybe not subtle but certainly not the glaring monstrosity he finds fading into view on his three days into his very first NHL training camp. He spends so long looking at it that he’s almost late to rink. It’s colors aren’t awful he has to concede but somehow having a soulmark with the Av’s logo in it had never occurred to him and he wasn’t really sure about the significance of the guitars...or the fish. He’s a friendly guy so he gets being well liked but he didn’t think he had made super close friends with anyone at camp yet, and certainly not bonding level.But he supposes the bond gods or whoever dealt with these things must know better than he does and bonds are never by fluke.He tells himself he’ll ask around at the rink and maybe someone else would have his mark. But he gets distracted first by Camp and then by the pace of the NHL season. The mystery bond mark falls by the wayside, as a ‘Thing that is not hockey and is thus not important’ as Gabe struggles to keep pace with the demands of professional hockey. There are days where he feels like all he is is a machine that converts chicken breast into goals.There is no time to do things like finish furnishing his apartment let alone think about a bondmark that clearly had little to no impact on his life despite its rather ridiculous size.

 

So it is with some shock that three months into the season he finds himself clutching his shoulder as it aches with the impact of a hit that he hasn’t taken, one he wasn’t even on the ice for. He waves off the trainer’s concern and tries to ignore the way his left knee now throbs for no reason and his shoulder now feels like it had suffered some serious damage that it most definitely hadn’t. He makes it through the rest of the period by the skin of his teeth and mostly because he is too stubborn to let his body stop him from playing hockey and far too stubborn to allow someone else’s to.

 

It is only when he is back in the locker room and he sees Dutchy wincing and flexing his right shoulder, the same shoulder the Gabe is still getting twinges of pain from, that it all falls into place. And he can’t help it he starts laughing. 

 

“Really, Dutchy, fish and country music?” Gabe gasps through his delighted giggles.

 

Matt looks up from where he is getting dressed confusion written all over his face. “Huh?”

 

Other guys in the locker room are starting to stare. So Gabe smothers his laughter long enough to get his shirt off to gesture broadly at the colorful addition to his chest, which he now knows is courtesy of the ridiculousness that is Matt Duchene.

 

Matt looks confused but then he starts laughing himself “That’s a pretty sweet soulmark, eh?”

 

Gabe rolls his eyes and punches Duchy in the shoulder, forgetting for a moment to be careful and both of them wince in unison, drawing laughter out of their watching teammates. 

 

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to injure your bond mates,  Landy” EJ shouts from where he is re-taping his stick

 

“Like you would know!” Matt chirps back still jovial.

 

“Oooh, low blow!” EJ replies but his toothless grin is still firmly in place so they know he’s not actually upset.

 

The chirping would have continued except that Coach storms in effectively distracting them from everything else not his wrath.

 

\----------------------

After the Game Gabe catches up with Matt in the parking lot, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

 

“So, what’s mine look like?”

 

Matt blushes a little but untucks his shirt to expose the small of his back, where glaringly bright against his winter pale skin sits a tiny swedish flag with two hockey sticks crossed behind it. It covers maybe a few centimeters of skin and Gabe feels vaguely disappointed after the near mural that was Matt’s mark. But shrugs it off with his usual what will be will be attitude. So what if he is always going to be carrying the bulk of the affection in this relationship, he has done in others and he has a lot of love to give. Besides it isn’t like being upset about it will magically change the bond marks.

 

“Well that is certainly an interesting placement.” Gabe teases.

 

“Aw, shut up, it’s your mark anyway.” 

 

“Yes it is buddy” Gabe returns his arm to its former position, pulling Matt into his side “Let’s go get a beer to celebrate our bond,yeah?”

 

Matt grins at him bright and wide despite the shit show that was that night’s game. “Sure, Let’s hit that bar on 6th, I’m sure they have a beer that can satisfy even your picky taste.”

 

“I’m not picky, I just have a refined palate” Gabe returns loftily, able to hold onto the ruse for only a few seconds before caving and breaking down into shared giggles with Matt.

 

\-----------------------------

Months pass and the bond settles as it had with all of Gabe’s others. Matt’s mark solidifies on his skin, lines coming in dark and clear, and he sometimes catches a glimpse of his own mark on Matty. He gets a sense of joy as it grows larger and more detailed the longer they know each other. He stops feeling Matt's pain unless they’re actually touching and he can’t really feel his emotions at all. Matt and Gabe settle too, into a friendship with a closeness that Gabe realizes he had been missing since he made the show. They hang out together so much the boys start calling them married at the rink to tease them. They get all sorts of bonded jokes but Matt doesn’t care and Gabe gives as good as he gets. Eventually the bond becomes old news and the guys stop ragging on them. Their season ends on worse terms than they wanted, but Gabe is happy for the chance to go home and see his family again, content with the knowledge that NHL hockey and Matt would be waiting for him when he returned.

 

He was not prepared for the lockout.

 

\---------------------

 

Gabe signs with his hometown team, proud to be able to play for them again. He throws himself whole hog into the season determined to be ready whenever the NHL got its act back together. He isn’t unhappy or anything,his hockey is good, the team wins alot, he gets to see his family but there are days, weeks even where he feels like something is missing, like the world is just slightly askew. The farther into the season he goes the deeper the feeling grows under his skin, like an itch he can’t scratch.  He pushes through it. He’s a hockey player and he’s definitely played through worse than feeling a little...off. He finds himself trying to run, lift and skate the feeling away. He is have limited success ignoring it and it makes him irritable, snappish in ways he tries to control but sometimes fails. It takes less than a month of her being home before Bea is at his door with a bottle of wine and judgemental face. 

 

“I could feel you angsting all the way from Norway.”

 

Gabe sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not  _ angsting _ , Bea, I’m just, I don’t know, feeling unsettled I guess?”

 

She pats the seat next to her on the couch she appropriated. “Come. Sit. And tell me about this feeling you have.” Her words are not suggestions.

 

Three bottles of wine later, Gabe is forced to concede that he might want more than a platonic bond with Matt and that ‘The silly feeling of things being off is called missing someone’ and that he might in fact be ‘In love, you great goof.’ The only question now is what to do with that knowledge.  Deepening a bond like that requires time, effort, and will from both parties and while Gabe knows he swings that way he has no goddamn clue about Matt. 

 

Bea allows him to ponder this turn of events, or sulk as she calls it, for the rest of the week. But by the weekend she is back in his apartment buying him train tickets to Switzerland, and packing a bag for him. 

 

“You have a week before your next game. You might as well do something useful with it.” She tells him briskly as she pushes him out the door and into the waiting taxi below.  “Don’t fuck this up!” She yells to him, waving and smiling as the cab pulls away. 

 

\-------------------------------

Gabe is met with a somewhat confused but also happy Matt at the train station at the other end of his journey and he feels a sense of supreme satisfaction, like something perfectly slipping into place as he wraps his arms around Matt in a hug and their bond re-opens.

 

“How did you know I would be here?”

 

“Someone named Bea called me and told me you’d be coming.” Matt says once their initial hug and greetings are out of the way. 

 

Gabe has to laugh a little. “That would be my twin, always happy to stick her nose where is doesn’t belong.” 

 

“Not to be rude or anything but what’s up with the surprise visit?”  Gabe can feel the tension thrumming along the bond along with a questioning feeling and something he later identifies as fear, but underneath that jumble he can still feel the bone deep contentment of being together again flowing back and forth between them. And suddenly Gabe isn’t unsure any more, not about this, about them.

 

“I, um, I had something to ask you. And it isn’t something you can really ask on the phone or skype.” It feels like he is standing on the edge of something huge ready to jump, and Gabe is nothing if not an adrenaline junkie. “I know this probably isn’t the place and it isn’t the perfect time but I don’t have it in me to wait any longer. Would you, Matt Duchene, do me the honor of deepening our bond and becoming my Mate?”

 

Gabe can barely breath through the wave of emotions crashing over him through their bond as it widens. The is joy so much joy and hope and fear but also overwhelming happiness and a feeling of rightness. And suddenly they’re kissing, making out in the middle of the train station where all and sundry can see and people are definitely staring but Gabe doesn’t give a single fuck. He gets to have Matt, to keep Matt, and nothing else is going to seem important for a very long time.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
